Paralegals & Legal Secretaries

Five years ago Marcy Gallagher was darting through the halls of her office as a busy paralegal in Florida, healthy as a horse. She had just married Tom Gallagher, then a lawyer in the same firm.

After discovering a small but unusual lump in her breast one day during a routine self-exam ? a ritual she practiced regularly ? she was in touch with her doctor. She wasn't worried, she said, because she'd had a mammogram only three months earlier. It showed nothing.

I was so good about getting all my doctor exams in,? Marcy Gallagher said. ?Just three months before, I'd been given the ?all clear' to not worry because the mammogram didn't catch it. If I hadn't discovered something myself, who knows how long it would have taken before I was diagnosed.?

Gallagher underwent the full gamut of breast cancer treatment ? a double mastectomy, radiation and six months of chemotherapy ? with a similarly comprehensive set of grueling symptoms.

?I think they chose me for the show because I really have a message. Like a ?Shout it from the rooftops' kind of message: get to know your body, perform self-exams. And don't be afraid to find something. Be afraid not to find it.?

I personally believe the rule about never leaving the house without white gloves may be relaxed slightly when one goes to the farmers? market for root vegetables.